A+Hole+in+the+World

Here are the questions and activities for this book. If you choose to answer the questions and complete the activities on line, you must create your own wiki space and type all of your work there. Send me an email and give me the link for your space so I can grade your work from there.

Essential Question: What impact do our words have on ourselves and others?

Each student must answer all of the questions below and define all of the vocabulary words. Additionally, students will be assigned a chapter on which to lead a class discussion that will include the vocabulary words and questions on this packet AND share either their journal entry or read and discuss a scene of significance. Students will receive points for the packet (115), the discussion they lead (25), and the journal entries (50). Total points for the unit – 190.

Pre-reading:

1. Answer the EQ with an answer of at least one paragraph.

2. The title of this book is a metaphor. What do you think this metaphor might represent in the lives of these modern-day characters?

3. Have you or anyone you know ever told a lie to your/their parents?

If so, were you/they caught? Explain what happened.

4. How does it feel to be caught in a lie? Is it ever “ok” to lie? Explain.

You need at least 10 entries, each at least one paragraph long (7 well-developed sentences). Each entry must use at least three of the vocabulary words from the chapters it covers. Underline each vocab. word.
 * Keep a journal that Paul might write about his punishment and his time on the farm.

Chapter 1: indentured servitude, grimace, usurp, acquiesce

1. Why is Paul’s father taking him to the Vallenport’s for the summer?

2. How would you describe the conversation between Paul and his dad?

3. How would you react if you were Paul?

4. Describe their arrival at the farm.

Chapter 2: exude, daunted, lupine

1. What is your impression of Ellis?

2. Predict how Paul’s first day on the job might go. Chapter 3: with impunity, perfunctory, waft

1. Why did Einstein not want the old green truck to go anywhere?

2. Predict where Hennley has gone.

3. What is Paul’s first job?

Chapter 4: facetiousness, incredulous

1. Make notes on Inez, Ellis and Dundas. Physical attributes, personality traits.

2. List two adjectives that would describe Paul’s first day on the job and explain why you chose each one.

Chapter 5: incongruous, ire, obstinate

1. Identify Rebecca.

2. What lie did Paul tell?

3. Why does Paul refer to the lie he told as “innocent”? Give two reasons why you agree or disagree with him. Have you ever told an “innocent lie”? Explain.

4. What kind of person is Ellis?

Chapter 6: obscured, accrued, ambled

1. Summarize Granny’s opinion of Hennley Gray.

2. Does he sound like anyone you know? Explain.

3. Do you believe that people are careless with their words? Are you? Explain.

4. Consider Paul’s thoughts about the Vallenport farm as unreal. Give at least two reasons why you agree with him or disagree if you think he’s overreacting.

Chapter 7: refurbish, demeanor, copse, reverie, vicariously, wield, ambiguous

1. What does Paul learn about Hennley’s death?

2. Analyze the author’s purpose for including Hennley’s ghost. Is this a ghost story?

3. What is Paul’s attitude toward the work he is doing? How does he feel about it?

Chapter 8: swale, volition

1. What plan does Paul have for his Saturday off?

2. What significance does Gallihugh Mountain have in the story? What could it symbolize?

3. What can you infer from the last sentence of this chapter?

Chapter 9: disconcerted, fatuously, ambivalence, gamely

1. Support or disprove the inference that you made in Chapter 8.

2. What does Paul learn about the cottage? Does this surprise you? Explain.

3. Why might Hennley have done this?

Chapter 10: remorse, disingenuous, charismatic, integrity

1. What is Paul’s impression of Maya? Is this the kind of woman you imagine Ellis would love or do you believe they make an odd couple? Explain.

2. How was Hennley a “rare character”?

Chapter 11: blithely, feisty, subconscious

1. Explain Paul’s circuitious walks around the farm.

2. Do you agree with Maya that people reshape the past to fit the present? What does that even mean?

3. Were you surprised that Paul will return to the farm after the Fourth? Would you have?

Chapter 12: gamely, discern, exasperate, incredulous

1. What is surprising about Paul’s visit home?

2. How was Hennley’s relationship with Einstein unusual?

Chapter 13: derisively

1. What can you infer about Dundas’s experience in the hay field? Explain.

2. How do you interpret Hennley’s words to Dundas: “Fight your demons while they’re little folks”? What “little demons” do kids your age have to fight?

Chapter 14: ravenously, repentantly, vicariously, annulled, void

1. What can you predict about Einstein’s absence?

Chapter 15: vacillated, disparity, desist, tact, apprehension

1. Why would Hennley leave his cottage to a teen-age girl he wasn’t even related to?

2. How does the inside of the cottage fit your image of Hennley?

3. Why wouldn’t Rebecca want to read the letter Hennley left her?

Chapter 16: clairvoyant, wanly, seance

1. Why do you think Hennley would address his suicide note to Rebecca and not to one of his male friends or the Vallenports?

2. What words in Hennley’s letter do you find the most inspirational and why?

3. Would you agree with Paul when he called Hennley brave? Or do you have another adjective to describe this choice?

4. What do you predict may happen at the seance? What leads you to believe this?

Chapter 17: grave (adjective), confidant, discretion, feigned, gregarious, reverent, conduit, palpable

1. What is the purpose of the seance?

2. Does the seance produce the desired result? What happens?

Chapter 18: rogue (adjective)

1. How does Paul explain Einstein’s sudden appearance?

2. Do you think the farm seems like a crazy place? Why or why not?

Chapter 19: jocular, obtuse, demeanor

1. What happens to Einstein?

2. Is it significant that Einstein died on Paul’s last day at the farm?

3. Where do they want to bury Einstein? Is that a good idea?

Chapter 20: oppressive

1. Why had Dundas made up the story of Hennley’s ghost? Was he right or wrong?

2. Why did the men make such an issue of digging Einstein’s grave?

3. What made this day so memorable for Paul?

Chapter 21: implicit

1. Why do you think Dundas destroyed the green truck?

2. What big news opens the way for a reunion?

3. What does the last line of the book tell you about how Paul has changed?

After reading the book:

1. In what ways did Paul show strength of character? Explain.

2. Write a “thank you” letter from Paul to the Davenports. Include what he learned about memory, loss and the power of words.

3. Now that we have read and discussed the book, write a second answer to the EQ, “What impact do our words have on ourselves and others?” Has your answer changed? If so, how and why?